Dyadic Representation in Canadian Parliamentary Debates Florence Vallée-Dubois (Université de Montréal) Dyadic representation rests on the incentives of representatives to attend to the interests of their constituents in single-member district electoral systems. But party discipline greatly limits dyadic representation. In Westminster style parliamentary systems, for example, members are expected to toe the party line, which […] Read more

Are citizens still receiving the treatment? A reassessment of previous findings on the effect of local context on the perception of the national economy Alexandra Jabbour (Université de Montréal) A growing number of studies investigate the role of local factors on individuals’ perceptions of the national economy. Some of those studies showed that individuals use local […] Read more

Vote switching and Coalition-Directed Voting: A Panel Study of Repeat Elections in Israel Liran Harsgor (University of Haifa)Reut Itzkovitch-Malka (The Open University of Israel) Or Tuttnauer (MZES Universität Mannheim)  A growing body of knowledge highlights the determinants of vote switching, such as issues, party positions and personality. This literature, however, does not take into account coalition-directed voting, which has […] Read more

Partisan Semantic Overlaps: Floor-speeches and Ideological Position Benjamin Guinaudeau (University of Konstanz) Estimating the ideological position of Members of Parliaments (MPs) remains a challenge for political scientists. Different approaches have been developed including surveys, roll-call votes and floor speeches. Inspired by the measure of polarization proposed in Peterson and Spirling (2018), we present a new […] Read more

Message Distortion as a Campaign Strategy: Does Rival Party Distortion of Focal Party Position Affect Voters? Zeynep Somer-Topcu (University of Texas at Austin) Margit Tavits (Washington University in St. Louis) Do voters understand party positions? A growing literature is interested in answering this question but has limited its focus on parties’ own policy messages. In real […] Read more

Evolution of Party Polarization and Voter Polarization in European Democracies Semih Cakir (Université de Montréal) Traditionally, party competition in established democracies in Europe is mainly structured around the economic cleavage. However, scholars increasingly argue that political conflicts that motivate party competition and mobilize voters have been under transformation. There is growing evidence that party competition […] Read more

Economic Risks within the Household and Voting for the Radical RightTarik Abou-Chadi (University of Zurich)Thomas Kurer (University of Zurich) This article investigates how unemployment risk within households affects voting for the radical right. Recent advances in the literature demonstrate the role of latent economic threats for understanding the support of radical right parties. We build on […] Read more

Critical Citizens: the Role of Education on Satisfaction with Democracy across Quality of Democracy.  Jean-François Daoust (University of Edinburgh)André Blais (Université de Montréal) The influential ‘critical citizens’ and ‘postmaterialism’ theories have important implications about how citizens react to democratic governance and their levels of satisfaction with the way democracy works. In this research, we argue […] Read more

Le Gender Gap dans le Vote d’Extrême Droite en Europe : Opinion Publique et Représentation Jeanne Marlier (Université de Montréal) Un des constats les plus partagés dans la littérature sur le vote d’extrême droite est que les hommes votent plus pour ces partis que les femmes. Cet article contribue à la compréhension de ce gender gap en analysant le vote […] Read more

The End of Political Clientelism? An Analysis of the Consequences of the July Election in the Dominican Republic Henry Milner (Université de Montréal) Apart from being the country in the Caribbean favoured by Canadian tourists, and the one most affected by the continuing tragedy in Haiti with which it shares the Island of Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic is now of particular interest to students of comparative politics. This is because the result of the election of July 5th, 2020 and the changes it heralds raise the question […] Read more